Access Bank is owned by Access Holdings plc, a Nigerian public company listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) 1. After its 2019 merger with Diamond Bank, Access became the largest bank in Africa by customer base 2.
What makes Access notable on this desk is that it flipped the script: rather than being bought, it did the buying — expanding across the continent through roughly 20 acquisitions to build a pan-African group spanning multiple African markets 1.
So one of Africa's biggest financial institutions is Nigerian-owned and Nigerian-listed — and an acquirer of others. It belongs in the same intra-African-champion column as Flutterwave and Dangote: value built and held on the continent. See the deals in Who's Buying Africa.